Who is the more well-adjusted twin; Damian, or Danyal? Why, it's Damian, of course!
And I have an explanation for this! But first I wanna preface this that this is just me like, rambling about this thought I have and it's not an attack on the trope as a whole. I love the Danyal Al Ghul au which is why i'm so deeply passionate about it, because I think it has a lot of potential to be explored. It's no secret that I've mentioned before that I think Danny's psychological development tends to get overlooked and underutilized in DAG aus, and the impact that growing up in an assassin league often goes ignored. This is just me further expanding on that.
Now lets set the stage! This is specifically for Danny who is adopted by the Fentons later down in life. Lets go twin au. At 10 years old, Damian goes to the Wayne Family, Danny is adopted by the Fentons (regardless of their affiliation with the League). By 14 years old, who ends up the better adjusted, more socially aware, spiritually in-tune with themselves, sibling? Why, Damian is! Why is that?
Because he has the actual support he needs compared to Danny. And I'm not talking about good or bad parents Fentons, because either way my opinion doesn't change. Damian would end up the better off twin, because, frankly, his family knows his background. They know he grew up in the League, they know what the League's teachings are, and they know he's a born and raised assassin. Knowing this, they can then help tackle and dismantle the teachings and lessons he has been given and ingrained into by the League. They may be a dysfunctional family, but they're functional enough to at least actively help deprogram all of the League's teachings that have been ingrained in Damian throughout his childhood.
Can't say the same for Danny.
Lets say Fentons here don't know his background -- and even if they do, the results may just stay the same if they play their cards wrong, -- Danny's now just been thrown into the deep end of a pool and is essentially being told sink or swim. Regardless of how he got there -- undercover, faked death, etc -- he has no proper support. He knows the League is meant to be secret, he's not gonna speak on it for various reasons. Whether it be some still lingering loyalty, fear of harm, or whatever. Whatever the reason is, he does not have a proper support system in the Fentons, no matter how nice they are. They can only tackle the surface level stuff and whatever Danny allows them to see -- if Danny ever lets them see it at all. For what do assassins do when they don't want to be caught? They hide. Sometimes in plain sight.
"But Jazz--" Jazz is a child. She is 2 years older than Danyal and no better at giving him a proper support system than the two adult Fenton parents, even with parentification. We don't know when she got into psychology or how long she'd been studying it by the time Danny's 14. We just know she's really into it. Even then, Jazz is not a licensed or reliable therapist, or even an experienced or implied good therapist, and should not be used as one either. It's a disservice to her character to reduce her down to 'supporting female emotional crutch'. Besides, therapy only works on people who want to get better. Danny, who'd be hiding who he really is, has very little incentive to want to, or to even think something is wrong with his way of thinking, even with exposure to the outside world.
When people's beliefs are outright challenged, they tend to double down on them, and Jazz canonically has a habit of psychoanalyzing her family and declaring what she thinks is the problem -- regardless of whether or not she's right about it. Jazz would get into psychology, try and psychoanalyze Danny, and all it would do is cause him to clam up, shut into himself further, and throw up even more walls so that she can't figure out that he has been lying this whole time. It would do more harm than good, and would actively hinder any progress he'd make in trying to open up to them. Roads and good intentions and all that.
That being said, I think Danny's development and dismantling of the League's teachings would be slower than Damian's. Much slower. Because he would be the one having to pick apart everything and figure out what is right, what is wrong, what he wants to keep, and what he wants to toss. Everything he unlearns would be stuff he has to unlearn himself. If he even gets to that point at all -- depending on his experiences, he very well could not change at all, or change very little. The League acts as a purge for humanity, meant to reign in their hubris and retain balance, they just also happen to be assassins for hire. Danny's time spent in Amity Park could as well strengthen his belief in their teachings just as much as it could weaken it, especially if it goes as canon and he gets bullied.
Regardless, being tossed to a civilian family as someone who is very much not a civilian, without any support, would be actively detrimental to Danny's overall mental health and development. Especially to strangers like the Fentons. Damian was closed off and standoffish even with blood family, and it took him time to open up to them -- Danny, with the Fentons, would be even more so. He doesn't know them, he doesn't trust them, he has no rhyme or reason to open up to them, and since the Fentons don't actually know him, they can't help him the way he needs. Once "Danny Fenton" is made, he has even less reason to open up. So long as Danyal allows it, they will only ever know Danny, and they'll never know Danyal.
TL:DR the Fentons aren't the better family option just because they're civilians, and actually that makes them the worser option between the two because they can't give Danny the proper support he needs. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.
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not about poetry but i don't trust people who go online spewing vague declarations of "in order to write you need to understand Form And Structure!!!!" because there's prose fuckheads who do the same thing where they just vaguely say you need to understand Structure before you write a novel, but by structure they usually just mean the three act structure and the hero's journey and they've never studied or considered how structure can function beyond that, especially in non-western/non-english writing theories. the minute someone is like ohhhh but the Structure.....in a vague manner like that i'm like okay so you don't actually know structure because if you had deeply studied structure in writing theory as you claim to have done, you would know how complex and fluid and varied and malleable it is and it's not just one thing you Learn How To Do like putting a table together. and it's not something you will one day know perfectly because you will, ideally, encounter new ideas to structure a story as you expand your reading and your own writing. anyway i'm done for now i'm logging off to read more filthy animals by brandon taylor, potluck was such a good short story collection opener. i'm excited to see how he links these stories into a structured collection. i'm excited to read family meal by bryan washington when i'm done because he did a lot of fun things with really short + really long chapters in memorial and i learnt a lot about structure and pacing from there.
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guys i havent written since may (for killer's birthday) but stupid silly swapinverse has been on my mind for a little bit and i threw together this silly (he has a panic attack and throws up) little short draft 4 swapinverse horror!!
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“hah… ah… oh god… no, no, nonono…”
he ran. sprinted through the forest like a frightened deer, his demeanor that of prey, although his previous actions aligned more of a predator. panting and shaking, his mind cycled through countless variations of how to react to what just happened, what he just did.
how should he react? how could he react? it was impossible to tell for him in the panicked state. and as the trees in snowdin slowly began to surround him (but weren't they always doing that?), paranoia couldn't run anymore. he was surrounded, he was blocked off, he couldn't escape. not from horrortale, not from snowdin, not from the dusty graveyard he had just left it, and not from the blood smeared across his mouth.
“no, i- what did, what did i do? paps, snowdin, even-undick, no, it-”
paranoia’s incoherent rambles brought his hands to wander across his face, tugging at the massive hole in his skull spanning majority of the left side of his head. picking at the chipped bone didn't help, it never did, but a nervous habit was unbreakable, and he was more than nervous in this moment. in fact, quite terrified. everything was terrifying. he was terrifying. and as the slightest hint of red blood touched his sleeve, the once red, now magenta eye quickly locked onto it, and he couldn't hold it back anymore.
“fuck- oh god, no, aliza-!”
falling to his knees, a disgustingly gorey mess of red, pink, and black spilled from his mouth. sounds of retching and hurling were all that filled the empty forest, and paranoia couldn't bear to look down and see the mess he’d made. the mess he’s caused. wasted food, he would've said. but that statement normally only applied to others. he never imagined using it on himself. choking on his spit and certainly not his blood, tears fell from his eye, joining the vomit and blood seeping into the snow. strange. paranoia didn't think he had enough magic to even shed tears anymore. just for the bare necessities. he managed to surprise even himself, after all this time.
but could it be could be considered surprise, or rather terror? he fit up to his name, certainly horrified at his own actions. forcing out as much of the grossness he could that he’d just consumed, paranoia couldn't help but look down at what he’d done.
red. a lot of red. too much red. he’d never been queasy before, never. he had to adapt to it, being the one to hunt down humans that ran or sneak up on those when times got desperate. there was no time or need to be queasy at what he even considered his job before. a duty he had to do.
but now, there was too much red. far too much red. and he didn't know why, although he totally knew, but paranoia couldn't stomach it. he just threw his guts out (shouldn't they be aliza’s guts, or no?), and here he was, wanting to throw up until his SOUL shattered. his SOUL cycled through those strange 4 shapes, unsure of which to settle on. he couldn't blame it. paranoia himself was unsure of what was even going on anymore. he wanted to run, but was frozen. he wanted to scream, but didn't know who at.
everything was contradicting. everything was going on, and not enough was given for paranoia to understand how to deal with it. and with a muttered curse, he flopped on his side onto the somehow dry snow, losing consciousness in the haze of fear now intermingled with his SOUL.
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ik theres probably grammar mistakes i wrote this on my phone,,,, but like idk. had idea for a little moment in paranoia's lore and i sure as hell didn't wanna draw it so i wrote it as an easier media! god this is so much easier compared to drawing idk why i dont do this more often (because youre lazy silly!) anyways swapinverse silly i love swapinverse. i've only thrown up like never so i dont know if this works. also never had a panic attack (i think) and AGAIN i dont know if this is accurate but whatever i dont write to be good i write for expressing my ideas. like everything i do
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I have a debt that won't leave my head : why didn't freddy ask Gregory or Vanessa to come back and rescue the other glamrock animatronics
Well we don't know he didn't for a fact- there's no real evidence one way or the other
The three came back to the Pizzaplex to set up MXES, and maybe they were planning on attempting to save the others while setting up the MXES system, but quickly realized they were beyond saving- or at least they they wouldn't be the ones to save them.
Maybe before that, they did try and simply failed- just because they try doesn't mean they'll succeed and we'll see the results of the rescue attempt.
The problem with saving them now is that they aren't like Freddy, who was infected and freed before it was too late- they're not infected anymore, they're just angry and not themselves. The issue isn't a virus anymore as that virus was already defeated, fixing them isn't as simple as playing a few arcade games, their code- their minds- they've been damaged and changed, and reversing it isn't easy, especially not in the states they're in right now.
And my point with this is; maybe Freddy and the others knew this, knew that they were just damaged, and thought that saving them was impossible. Plus, none of this is to mention just how dangerous a rescue attempt would be- we saw how they acted around Cassie, and we saw how especially Roxy was still angry and looking for Gregory- a rescue attempt would be life threatening, and with everything on their plate already, a mission that they knew would most likely fail and could easily get one of them killed might not be worth it.
Though to be honest, it sounds unlikely when thinking of Freddy specifically- maybe Gregory and Vanessa, but those are Freddy's friends, he's described them as such, and I think he'd be able to convince the two to at least try. But I don't think it worked.
TLDR; looking at his character he most likely did, but the attempt failed. Either that or he had to give up the attempt before it started, knowing that his friends just weren't themselves anymore and wanting to protect his family from them.
Not sure if this made sense- but I hope I got my point across uierjgherfl
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personal grumbling re: char dev woes
hmmng i keep finding myself lacking something when it comes to developing my characters here. i guess it's like... i miss collaboration?
i'm so used to making characters for tabletop that it feels lonely doing it without other people involved. oc asks are fun and all but i really need someone to just... bounce ideas off, n discuss interactions n themes n parallels and all that good stuff! i really want to like, not necessarily even roleplay (though i do want to get back into that. eventually.) but just create something *with* someone again.
but then this also feeds back into the whole "all my ocs feel half baked" issue because how am i supposed to get someone interested enough to want to actually talk about ocs personally if i can't develop them to the point of being interesting? it's such an annoying feeling.
i know a lot of this is in my head, because i do this all the time! but it's still a Problem for me, even if it's a made up problem. and i don't mean to sound self deprecating about this or anything, m' just a bit frustrated with myself. and maybe a little lonely. idk. bleh.
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